Scarlet Rivalry
by The Joe and Gromit Show
Summary: The son of Sparda and the merc with a mouth clash blade to blade as each finds himself on the opposite side of a fierce struggle to obtain an artifact of great power. But to the two hired men, that which is of paramount importance is the lulz.


_Joe: On playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, it occurred to me that a Dante/Deadpool crossover had the potential for a pretty damn entertaining fic. So for old time's sake I went back to , more specifically the Devil May Cry section and looked for Deadpool crossovers. There were two._

_This displeased me._

_Devil May Cry has a wide variety of crossovers. An unsettling amount of these involve drilling uncomfortable romance into an encounter between Dante and a minor, or Dante and an anatomically inconvenient partner. But hey, it's the internet; I get that. Some rocks you just don't want to look under._

_But here was what I felt to be a perfectly fitting crossover between compatible characters in compatible genres, and almost zilch to show for it. So, a couple of uneventful train rides later, I present this humble brain diarrhoea that just might distract you from whatever you were supposed to be doing, for a while at least._

_Note, I should very much hope that my writing style hasn't gone to shite since I last updated (a year ago? Two years ago?). I haven't had any opportunity to practice composing prose. For the past while, science has been my mistress and she complains if I come home late. So please bear with me._

* * *

><p>With a look of unparalleled deliberation the hunter stared down his prey, his unyielding icy blue eyes narrowed. His jaw was close to shuddering from the tension created by grinding his teeth, which he exposed so as to rather unnecessarily express his aggression. A lone opalescent pearl of sweat dripped down the hunter's forehead and progressed slowly down to his taut cheek. But still the hunter's gaze remained frozen. For to display even the slightest sign of weakness could betray his efforts.<p>

He was stone. He was stalwart. He was an unmovable object, and his target was a very stoppable force.

His quarry quivered with fear, and indeed had been quivering for the past minute or so. It's face was contorted to portray both horror and incomprehension. It could not begin to fathom what he had done to deserve this current predicament, how dangerously improvident it could possibly have been to land itself here in front of the hunter.

Through what it now appreciated to be foolishness of the highest order, it had come into possession of a rather fragile item of considerable value to the hunter. It slowly came to reach the opinion that such an object mattered little to it, it's priorities thoroughly reshuffled due to the encounter with the terrifying man before it. Now, now more than ever it felt that all that ultimately mattered was survival.

There could only be one way. It could not possibly win any fight under any conditions with the hunter, nor did the hunter seem like he would lose interest. All that remained was to flee. To flee and should fate decide to spare it, continue on with the life it now appreciated more than it ever had or ever would again. The prize was of laughably small value to it now, in the face of it all.

Suddenly, the target flung it's prize at the hunter and tore down the street, it's heart pounding forcefully against it's abdominal wall with a rate never to be experienced again.

"You're going to have to tip the pizza boy _some_ day," a blonde lady to the hunter's right remarked with some bemusement.

The hunter, after appraising the contents of the pizza box he had just received with a content smirk, laughed merrily and slammed shut the front door of the _Devil May Cry_.

"Didn't see you reaching for _your_ purffss," Dante said thickly, a pizza slice terminating his observation with a cheesy vengeance. Deciding his behaviour intolerably unfitting, he sought to correct matters with a nice cold beer from the fridge.

The blonde lady, Trish, gave a small noise of disgust at Dante's enthusiasm with his meal and reached out towards the box, which the son of Sparda had dropped onto his desk.

"You're going to run out of pizza companies," Trish pointed out before selecting a slice. She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then added irritably "Besides the fact that you already ran out of all the good ones."

"This is New York, baby" Dante answered as he flung himself into his chair and perched his feet on the desk "The amount of pizzerias that open and close every month in this place is huge. Besides, they all get their share of assholes in the finest city in the world and they're used to it. Or they should be. In which case I'm only helping."

"So you freely admit you're an asshole?" Trish asked with a smirk, her eyes analysing the remaining slices only to find that they were uniformly pizza-like in appearance.

"Everyone's an asshole," Dante replied, his air suggesting that he thought himself very sagely.

"I'm not an asshole." Trish protested.

"You're two assholes."

"That doesn't even –"

"_Shh_. Pizza." Dante scolded, a slice in one hand and the other gesturing in a demonstrative fashion to it. He then proceeded to down said slice with a speed that would suggest urgency had he been anyone else.

This response seemed to satisfy Trish, or at least she gave no impression of wanting to pursue the argument further. Instead, she quietly ventured to obtain a beer from the fridge. Finding none, she pivoted on the spot to glare at the offending party. It was at this moment, staring at Dante's desk, that she seemed to remember something vitally important.

"No word?" the she-devil asked worriedly, pointing to the black rotary phone that lay by Dante's muddied boots.

Raising a boot to inspect the phone in question, Dante then dismissed her worry with a nonchalant wave of his hand.

"She'll be fine. She'd only just have finished her shift, not like she's gonna call us the second she's finished."

"Still." Trish persisted, her lips pursed and her brow creased "We haven't heard from her since she left last. And things are only getting more difficult with that job by the day."

_That job_ to which Trish was referring was a security gig for a private company dealing with antiquities. Though not the usual sort of job Devil May Cry dealt with, Dante's interest was piqued when the contact from the firm mentioned that the previous security detail had been slaughtered by demons.

The firm would not disclose exactly what they wanted guarded. All that Dante and co could ascertain was that it was a "commodity of modest dimensions" that was to be kept in a bulletproof, graphene-coated safe at all times. The safe was housed in a warehouse down by the docks, and was to remain there until "associates" of the firm arrived with a financial bid of a satisfactory value. Day by day, low-class demons attempted to swarm the place in waves of varying frequency and intensity. Sometimes they came in sizable hordes comprising of an impressive variety of devil-spawn, other times they came individually in sporadic intervals.

So it was that Dante, Lady and Trish took shifts so as to provide 24/7 security for the warehouse. Dante's real interest in the arrangement was discovering what the secured item was that was attracting so many demons and such a large financial investment. The moment the safe was to be opened to leave the contents, whatever they were, exposed, he planned on being there to destroy it. Unless it was of value to one who enjoyed killing demonkind.

"Things are getting more interesting you mean," Dante corrected her, before yawning audibly. He groggily mumbled something unintelligible before removing his feet from the desk. "Christ, don't even have a reason to be tired." He raised his arms and stretched them to the point a slight crack was heard. "Need to stretch my legs. Falling asleep here."

As though on cue the telephone chimed. The devil hunter reached quickly for it, suppressed another yawn, and answered in a gruff tone:

"Devil May Cry. Password."

"You're up, demon." Lady croaked into her cellphone. "I'll wait until you show up." _Click._

"Oh, okay. Are you sure? Hah, I suppose so!" Dante laughed into the receiver, unblinkingly before donning a charming smile "Well, if you can't handle it, I guess I can take over... No! I insist! Why? A gentleman shouldn't have to provide a -"

"She hung up, didn't she?" Trish drily asked.

""_Hello_ _Dante, how are you_?"" Dante grumbled without breaking a beat, before throwing the handle back on the receiver. ""I'm just peachy, _thanks for asking_." No goddamn manners." He continued as he grabbed his red leather coat. "How hard can it be to show some basic politeness?"

"Yeah, speaking of basic politeness," Trish began, crossing her arms while the half-devil gathered twin handguns and his sword "You owe me a six-pack. Or cough up the cash I paid to buy the one you drank all of."

Dante opened his mouth momentarily before realising he had nothing to say. He closed it, thought for a second, tried once more and again found his stock of counter-arguments empty.

"Look, I'd love to stay here and argue," he began with as much sincerity he could muster – startlingly little, that is, "But I'm not going to. Bye."

Pausing only to give a charming smile to his reflection on a mirror on the wall, he tore out with his customary hostile attitude towards the door.

* * *

><p>In a small, damp apartment room elsewhere in the same city as the devil hunter, three men were having a meeting. Of the three, by far the strangest man (at first glance) was the latest arrival, a man dressed all over in a red and black suit. His loud fashion sense seemed entirely incongruous with the surrounding room; a dank and unimpressive kitchen slash living room with modest dimensions. Cracks appeared frequently along the walls, the same walls struggling to keep a frail grasp on peeling wallpaper which itself had faded to a dreary grey. One could only guess what the original shade of the walls had been.<p>

With a strained rhythm the kitchen tap dripped into an empty sink, the one thing breaking the silence: upon the man in red's entry, the two other men, both quite old, had appraised him expectantly without uttering a word. He had clearly been expected to make the opening remark. However the man's attention had rather swiftly been diverted to scrutinise a pair of dust-coloured moths circling the light bulb above him, crashing hopefully into it at short intervals. His eyes followed their progress with childlike fascination, undeterred by one of the older men clearing his throat.

"..._You_ are the mercenary that cannot be killed?" croaked one of the old men finally, his voice reminding the man in red of a toad being squashed by a rolling pin, as well as the worst casserole he had ever made. The mercenary finally examined his potential clients, now that they had got his attention. If the old man's voice could have accurately been described as unsettling, then certainly his appearance required a few moments for one to try and come up with a less charitable adjective. One associated with a sizable growth of mould would do nicely, the mercenary decided.

The man's face was heavily wrinkled – _heavily_ wrinkled. The mercenary likened it to a face superimposed upon progressively larger faces. All of the man's features were slightly skewed to the right, as though one had managed to photoshop the entire face a centimetre to the side along his skull.

His friend, a tall, spindly figure was no more charming in his appearance. Although his eyes, nose and mouth could roughly be considered at the centre of his face they were in no way the usual distance from each other. The beak-like nose was framed by two reddened eyes, much higher above the mouth than would be comfortable. A thin quiver of darkened skin underlined his eyes and nose, the skin tissue stretched almost to breaking point. Surrounding the main large stretch mark lay smaller darkish red strikes, just so as not to leave a job undone.

"No, _your_ face is heavily disfigured," the mercenary replied loudly.

The two men blinked twice, then exchanged a confused glance.

"I – er, yeah, that's me, I mean," the mercenary corrected himself shamelessly, before striking a fantastic pose "Deadpool at your faces – _SERVICE_. Your service. At that."

Unfazed, the heavily wrinkled man took a step towards Deadpool and offered his misshapen hand.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Deadpool," he growled "If you don't mind, we shall get straight to business."

Deadpool stared at the hand; it appeared scarred, with several of the fingers twisted to what must have been painful angles, yet the man displayed no evidence of being in any discomfort. After a couple of seconds of staring, he shrugged before clasping the hand and shaking it.

"Who do I kill, what do I get?" He replied simply.

"Who you kill," the man responded as he withdrew his hand "May vary, and is ultimately beside the point. What we require of you, is to retrieve an artefact of great value."

"What kinda artefact? And what value are we talking about here?" Deadpool asked with a raised eyebrow. "In fact, scratch that first question."

"No value to people such as yourself," the taller man stated bluntly, the first words Deadpool had heard him speak.

"The artefact is of...religious interest to us, Mr. Deadpool," his shorter friend explained before the merc could reply "And is of little commercial value."

"Okeydokey," said Deadpool, placing his hand on his chin thoughtfully "But why do you need me to get it? I don't do quiet acquis...acqui...stealing crap without shooting people's not my usual thing"

"We have already attempted to retrieve our rightful possession, with great numbers of our – compatriots falling to those hired to defend it," the wrinkled man answered carefully "And we believe that you are the man who should succeed where our brethren have failed."

The man's choice of words intrigued Deadpool. He was often wary of people who used words like 'brethren'. Sometimes they wanted to convert him, other times they wanted to sacrifice him. Other times they wrote shitty fiction on the internet. Deadpool wondered which scenario he currently found himself in.

"By 'brethren' you mean...?"

The two older men exchanged a meaningful glance. There was silence as the two seemed to communicate with their eyes only. The taller one finally nodded.

Without warning, the shorter man's skin tore explosively as a darker figure emerged from the seams. The figure stepped out of the fleshy remains, exposing pointing talons before planting them on the ground.

A grotesque form stood before the merc, a feathered yet humanoid abomination dripping with blood. Great grey wings, tinged with red plumage, were folded at it's back. It also had arms which terminated with sharp-looking claws. On it's chest was an ornate crest of sorts carved deep below the feathers and into the skin, depicting outstretched wingers with a strange skull at it's centre: almost equine, yet with curved horns. The head of the creature itself seemed humanoid, but without a nose and displaying hardened, callous skin around the mouth suggesting something between a mouth and a beak.

"You..." Deadpool began hoarsely, his eyes wide. The creature folded it's arms defensively as it once again exchanged a meaningful glance with it's friend.

"...missed a spot," finished the merc as he brushed off some tattered blood vessel tissue from the creature's shoulder. "So ah, you're running out of bird...things to throw at your holy thingie and you heard that I could use my magnificent talents to get it for you."

"That is correct," the demon answered. It's voice had not changed; it had evidently been using it's own vocal chords when occupying the dead body.

"And in terms of compensation?" the merc answered bluntly.

"Whatever material wealth you may desire will be provided by our Master," the demon replied cryptically "Once he is reborn."

"Reborn in a 'found Jesus' sorta way, or in a way that involves me getting paid as soon as I'm done?" questioned Deadpool, unimpressed "And what kind of _material wealth_ is this dude going to dish?"

Giving a small growl of discontent at the first question, the demon merely replied: "Whatever you desire our Master may provide. Be it human legal tender, items of the greater world, or indeed human females."

"_Sold_" Deadpool sputtered, seizing the demon's hand and shaking it again "Now just point me holy thingie-wards."

* * *

><p>Dante watched with intense boredom as the fog of his breath coalesced with the cloud of steam his coffee produced.<p>

The cold at this time of night he could take. The boredom, however, was new territory.

He glanced around at the view his vantage point provided. He was standing at the top of a warehouse, the warehouse wherein the 'artefact' lay. The warehouse appeared just like many others; a dull grey block of a structure, rectangular and with that kind of wavy sheet metal that are always covering warehouses.

But the warehouse was far from normal, just like most things Dante encountered in his line of work. There were no doors and the walls and windows were protected by a seal of sorts, impassable to those who disapproved of their flesh burning off in a rather gruesome manner. Only a hatch in the roof could be used to enter the building, a hatch which was coated with a similar bulletproof, graphene-coated locked panel as the safe holding the artefact itself. After testing the strength of the panel by shooting it for a while (Dante, with a sniff, concluded that it was in fact rather strong) he took to staring at the horizon, at the city skyline.

The same skyline he had grown bored of over a week ago. And even back then he had been killing things in various manners while he regarded it. But now; now there was nothing to kill. Nothing to stab, nothing to slice, nothing to shoot, nothing to mock before shooting and certainly nothing to mock before mocking and shooting.

Just caffeine and boredom. And the former was certainly not helping the latter.

Lady had mentioned as she ended her shift that there would be a surprise. The surprise being that there were no longer any demons attempting to breach the seal of the warehouse. And this, this was simply unacceptable. Not gaining any progress in trying to identify the artefact he was protecting is one thing, but not killing things while he was going about not doing so was another.

Taking a draught from his coffee, Dante considered what this lag could mean. Had the demons given up? Or simply taken a hiatus to gather strength? Either way, he reasoned, it would probably be best to -

_Fthk!_

A bullet penetrated the back of the son of Sparda's head, tearing skin and muscle alike for the briefest of moments before impacting forcefully yet futilely against the half-devil's skull.

Also, he spilled his coffee over himself.

"Gah!" Dante shrieked "Damn it! Ow! Shit, that's hot!"

The gunman behind him was slightly more upset. The thing with the bullet still happened to be vertical. Either his gun was broken or the laws of physics were.

Handgun still smoking, Deadpool considered the man in the red coat as he circled him slowly. The man was patting his front wildly, but apart from the evident amount of upset the bullet caused, the man appeared quite alright. Something definitely didn't add up.

"Excuse me," Deadpool inquired of the man quite abruptly "But did I just shoot you?"

Dante looked up from the stain over his front and fixated on what he could only describe as the least stealthy-looking ninja he had ever seen. Two katanas were slung at the man's back, and various firearms were strapped along his legs. In another situation he may have asked the man where he had procured his weaponry, and what time they close at on a Tuesday evening. In this instance, however, Dante just blinked as he contemplated the man's question. If he had been shot, his head would have stung momentarily, rather a dead giveaway. However he had been entirely occupied with the coffee he spilled over himself. Although, had he, Dante, been shot by this man, it would nicely explain the matter of the spillage.

"I don't know," Dante replied slowly "Did you?"

The two paused for a moment, each frowning uncertainly at the other.

"Yeah" came Deadpool's unsure response "I think I did."

"Oh."

Silence.

After a pause, and without a word, Deadpool raised his pistol and shot Dante in the forehead for good measure. This time the devil hunter stumbled back a few steps.

Dante gave a shout of (unjustified) surprise before flinging the remnants of his coffee to the side and seizing Ebony and Ivory, his twin handguns.

"Ahhh. Okay," Deadpool remarked "Okay. Okay. You _do_ get hurt by bullets. Okay. I think I've cleared that up. Right."

Dante, fingers firmly grasping the triggers of his handguns, frowned with confusion once more.

"What's your deal, punk?" he demanded of Deadpool.

"I think..." Deadpool answered "That I have to ki..." he paused. "Is this warehouse 47 in lot F3?"

"...Yeah," Dante confirmed after a moment's thought.

"Ohhhhhhh." Deadpool said with a smile, or at least his mask creased in such a way as if he had. He then gave an innocent laugh, as though having just made a rather silly mistake "Haha! Right, that sorts everything out. Yeah... Yeah, I'm going to have to kill you."

Deadpool had not just finished this last sentence when Dante's twin Colt .45s began firing a barrage at the mercenary with a deafening cascade of bangs.

The merc's body jolted furiously as each bullet pounded into his abdomen, as though he were having a fit. For a moment he actually found himself suspended in mid-air by the endless force of the bullets before there was silence, and he collapsed on the ground.

Dante exhaled heavily as he placed Ebony and Ivory back in their holsters, staring at the tattered red and black heap. He gave a sharp gasp when the heap got back up and eyed him reproachfully.

"That...was unpleasant." Deadpool observed saliently. "I'm really going to have to kill you now."

"Go ahead." Dante invited him with a smirk, reaching for Rebellion "Make my day."

Deadpool paused and frowned. Dante, just to make sure he appreciated his point, gave his broadsword a flourish before taking an offensive stance. The merc merely brought his hand to his chin thoughtfully.

"What was that from?" he inquired.

"...what?" Dante responded, still in stance.

"That line. '_Go ahead. Make my day._' That's just going to bug me now." The merc merely shook his head sadly "I know, I just _know_ that I'll be trying to sleep when it hits me. Oh well."

With those last two words, in the blink of an eye, the merc had darted towards the hunter, drawing his twin katanas. There was a loud _clang_ as their blades clashed, followed by a series of more punctuated clangs as Deadpool unleashed a flurry of slashes with his two swords.

Dante, although initially impressed by the merc's speed, parried as necessary before attempting to outdo Deadpool and slash swiftly upwards with great force.

Deadpool blocked Rebellion with his swords in a scissor motion at the last moment. He had just achieved a triumphant "Ha!" before he found himself lifted into the air by the force of Dante's vertical slice. With an astoundingly feminine shriek Deadpool realised that he had severely misjudged his opponent's strength, yet he clung on to his swords tightly.

The two blinked at each other uneasily as they found themselves in a curious position. Dante holding up Rebellion after ending his upwards slice, Deadpool balancing himself upside down, clamping onto Rebellion in a scissor grip from above.

Dante spun Rebellion and slammed down hard, attempting to smash his assailant into the ground, but Deadpool simply let go of his swords and with a pirouette landed on his feet on the ground behind the devil hunter.

Before Dante had time to turn around, Deadpool had grabbed a pair of submachine guns from his legs and let loose a hail of fire.

Dante gave a shout of pain before diving to the left, performing a combat roll. On recovering from his roll he had grabbed his handguns and returned fire.

Bullets collided and sparks flew. Deadpool, fascinated by this display of lights, managed to empty his magazines without realising. On hearing a click, he thought quickly and leapt from the edge of the warehouse roof.

Dante watched as the merc dived, then stopped firing. He tried to catch his breath for a second, before groaning slightly and rubbing his back where Deadpool had buried an impressive amount of lead.

_Fthk_!

Again Dante had been shot in the back of the head, but this time he was perfectly able to appreciate it. He cursed loudly before spinning round to see Deadpool landing after vaulting over from the opposite side of the building.

"By the way," the merc said "It was Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry said that line. Sudden Impact. I knew I'd get it."

"Oh right," Dante remarked with deeply unsubtle sarcasm "Didn't care. You sad, strange little man."

Deadpool blinked.

"Oh, _come on_!" he shouted with genuine anger "Now where's _that _line from? I swear, you're _deliberately_ doing this to piss me off!"

* * *

><p><em>Joe: C'est tout for now. More to come...at some point. Maybe. <em>

_Do people still review around here nowadays? Yeah? Awesome. Do that. Do the shit out of that._

_I just realised that I never explained the whole "Joe" thing, and since enough time has passed since the profile's last post I may as well actually explain. I share (or shared? Still share? I'm still technically __here__ so...) this profile with one of my best friends. We distinguish our fics with the label "Joe" or "Gromit". Well, my friend does sometimes. If there's neither Joe or Gromit there, then that's Gromit._

_We occasionally do (did) stuff together, such as the pointedly preposterous __Life and Times of Agni and Rudra__, and the satire that went disastrously wrong (or right? How does one gauge the success of a satire? By people getting it and laughing or by those on the sharp end of the jokes not realising it? Meh.) __Anti-Nero Hour__._

_And, in case anyone's going to ask me about it, yes, I'm finished With __Devil May Cry: Hell's Frontline__. If I didn't have enough time two years ago I sure as hell don't now. Oh, Vergil dies. And Tailor. Joel doesn't, but he's not particularly happy about that. Dante becomes a very bitter dude, and Vergil kinda becomes a nice dude (before his fatal dose of stabbing by his aul' uncle). Any other twists I had planned...? Ah, can't think of any at the moment. _

_Toodles._

_-Joe._


End file.
